Numerous electronic technologies such as digital computers, video equipment, and telephone systems have facilitated increased productivity and reduced costs in processing information in most areas of business, science, and entertainment. More and more the components used in these activities interact with a network (e.g., the internet, the cloud, etc.). The number of electronic devices used in these activities is growing rapidly, with new versions and new types of devices with diverse capabilities being continuously and rapidly introduced. Thorough testing of the devices under many different scenarios is important to make sure the devices will function correctly. Providing proper testing environments is often critical to achieving accurate test results. However, when the devices are interacting with very large networks beyond the control of the tester it is difficult to ensure accurate test results.
Traditional attempts at testing devices that communicate with large networks often involve trying to simulate the large communication network. This typically involves significant resources. The traditional approaches are typically implemented in a large stationary facility or room with lots of costly equipment attempting to simulate the large communication network. In addition, providing radio frequency interference mitigation for the large facilities is also typically very expensive and involving numerous individual different test devices in a large shielded room (e.g., oscilloscopes, voltmeters, etc.). These large facilities often require significant manual interaction and supervision to accurately test a device. Each different type of device under test often involves a complete reset and reconfiguration of the large facility. It is also usually inconvenient and disruptive for ongoing field operations to ship products to a single facility for testing. Traditional attempts to automate some aspects of the testing are typically limited. Conventional approaches typically require significant manual support for various activities such as configuring the test environment, equipment maintenance, test case delivery, device profile delivery, test data collection, data analytics and reporting, and consulting, for example. These factors contribute significantly to the cost of traditional device testing.